About

My name is Amit Bhawani and I am the chief blogger on this Blog and here I like to share my internet / tech experience with my online readers. You can follow me on Twitter, Facebook & Google +1 at +Amit Bhawani
I am also the Editor-in-Chief of Phone Radar, which is a Phone Reviews & News Portal.

39% Traffic Drop with Google Page Layout Panda Update

Last week there seems to be another Google Panda Update where in the blogs which were having many advertisements when compared to content were penalized and we also saw a huge drop in our blogs traffic. There were always speculations that blogs which has many ad units when compared to the content would get penalized but there was no clear figure on how much % should be there. We initially thought that there was some issue with the server the very first day but since the traffic decreased went down everyday, we found that this is not a normal issue and same was confirmed on QOT which also has the same experience.

Last year many blogs had reported that Google will soon come up with an update on this and they would penalize all the blogs which would have more ads over content and this has finally been applied. Here is a screenshot of our blog’s traffic stats which clearly states that the traffic has gone down drastically and there is no update from Official Google Team on this.

We always have had a ad unit below the blog post titles and also on the sidebar which was of 300×250 ad size, but thanks to the suggestions from Google Adsense Team, we have had also implemented a Google Ad Unit of 728×90 next to logo which seem to have created this issue, because that counted the total number of ads above the fold to 3 which infact gives a bad reader experience. Hence in order to fix this we have removed the ad next to the logo and tried to move the 300×250 ad almost below the fold.

As of now you can check out the Browser Size tool from google which gives you a clear representation on how many ads would a ready see when they are on a specific browser resolution and this is the tool which clearly shows you that most of the readers who have resolution less than 800px always see a higher percentage of your advertisements and not your blog content, which is a very bad user experience. Hence in order to fix this you need to move all the ads below the fold if possible or try to create a better balance in this to ensure that you don’t get this penalty.

We will keep you updated on how we will be fixing this panda update and the progress on the same. In case we find some interesting stuff we will post about the same. Meanwhile its suggested for you to remove all the advertisements from your blogs which don’t pay you much like the Infolinks or Kontera ad units because they are just killing the reader experience and just make it look like an Made for Ads site.

Update : If you check out the below stats graph you would find that the traffic was back and this could be probably because the automatic algo would have scanned the blog for changes and the traffic / rankings would have been set back to the previous ones.

You can also read the following comments where other users have also made a few changes to their blog layouts and found that the traffic is actually increasing when you reduce the ads above the fold.

Related

About Amit Bhawani

My name is Amit Bhawani and I am the chief blogger at Amit Bhawani Blog and where I like to share my internet/tech experience with my online readers on this website. You can read more about me at my About Page. You can follow me on Twitter, Facebook & Google +1 at +Amit Bhawani

They have panalized those websites more which have low content compared to advertisments.
So along with reducing the ad units first…look after your content and its quality. If you improve that then it will effect you lesser.

I have been told in twitter a week back that new Google Panda update is penalizing blog’s having more ads then content since then i applied few changes in my blog and the traffic didn’t get down. I hope it will not get penalized in future. Can you please check my blog’s layout and tell me if i’m on right path?

I have been told in twitter a week back that new Google Panda update is penalizing blog’s having more ads then content since then i applied few changes in my blog and the traffic didn’t get down. I hope it will not get penalized in future. Can you please check my blog’s layout and tell me if i’m on right path?

One of my website traffic dropped to 10%
daily traffic of 5000 visitors to 500…
i am fed up with google and Gadsense policy, from these updates i am losing my interest and it breaks all my concentration. what should i do?
do you think starting ecommerce site helps bcoz by this i dont have to rely on adsense
relying only on adsense is like putting all eggs in one basket.
please help

One of my site got hit by this Google panda page layout update and I removed the Ad unit below the title and placed on the sidebar top. After 4 days my site started to get search traffic and now its completely recovered from this update.

this is very disappointing for adsense users. on one hand Google is penalizing the sites which have more ads above the post, on the other hand its stuffing more and more ads in SERPs. search google for phrases like cheap loans, buy home, credit card etc.at Google. you will find only ads above the fold. on his own search engine, Google is stuffing more and more ads!
Dont you think amit that this will definitely hurt adsense earners?

Amit, thanks for the suggestion buddy, I really adore you and guys at QOT. AFter getting slapped by new algo change I had to remove my beloved Google 728×90 and BSA custom 265×90 ad solts, my revenue was not toomuch but still affected. 🙂

It’s curious.I have some sites with too much ads above the fold, and fortunately, they have nit been affected by this update. Just in case, I have drastically changed the structure and now there’s a lot more content above the fold and I have pushed down the ads. I hope in the next revision of Panda my sites can make it trough again.
Thanks for sharing your opinions and experience about this algorithmic adjustment.

Well i am not alone in the boat, my traffic dropped by nearly 35% since last week, i was lucky to be spared by panda everytime, but since last week i don’t know what happened, there has been severe drop in my traffic. The top pages are performing as it is, its just that no. of impressions that were resulting in search has decreased.

I was researching about the reason for reduction in traffic and landed in your website. I did changes as per your suggestion and waiting to see the traffic changes. Will update later, if there are any improvements.

I think my friend it’s not just the panda only, the Google Zebra which is personalization of Google SE is also bringing down the traffic of many websites.So it’s now become really important to be proactive on Google Plus.